I built DreamStack because I was tired of the "disposable MVP" culture in Node.js. Most templates/starters tie your business logic so tightly to Express or NestJS that a framework migration is effectively a total rewrite.

I wanted to see if I could build a truly agnostic engine using the Adapter and Repository patterns. The Result:

Framework Agnostic: You can swap the underlying HTTP engine (Express ↔ Hono) via a single .env variable.

A+ AI Audit: I used GitHub Copilot to perform a modularity audit, which returned a 98/100 score on separation of concerns.

Performance-First Testing: I optimized the DI container and persistence layers so that all 508 tests (unit + integration) run in under 10 seconds.

Infrastructure Flexibility: Swappable layers for SQL (Prisma) and NoSQL (Mongoose).

It includes the "boring stuff" like JWT rotation, RBAC, and OAuth so you can focus on the unique parts of your app. I'm here to talk about the architectural trade-offs of this approach versus the standard "batteries-included" frameworks.